But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village-Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, 50 55 Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. 60 Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, Their lot forbad: nor circumscrib'd alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 65 70 75 Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhimes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, And many a holy text around she strews, For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, On some fond breast the parting soul relies; For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead If chance, by lonely Contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 80 85 90 95 100 "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt'ring his wayward fancies would he rove; Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn, Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. "One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he; "The next, with dirges due in sad array, 105 ΠΙΟ Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.— 115 Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay THE EPITAPH Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth, Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, He gain'd from Heaven ('t was all he wish'd) a friend. No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose) The bosom of his Father and his God. 120 125 NOTES ON THE DESERTED VILLAGE 1. Auburn: Goldsmith obtained the name from his friend and fellowmember of the Literary Club, Bennet Langton (Forster's Life, II, 206). There is an Auburn in Wiltshire, but it is not Goldsmith's. 2. swain: a favorite word for young man, lover, or shepherd, in the set or conventional poetical phraseology of the eighteenth century. Goldsmith uses it here in the sense of rustic or countryman. 3. smiling spring: the first of the many personifications, of which the eighteenth century was especially fond, in the poem. Other and more typical examples are the personified abstractions, ll. 68, 81, 319, *321, 403, etc. But few of these (so virtue, 1. 108; folly, 1. 270; Poetry, 1. 407; and two or three more) are capitalized in the original editions. 4. parting summer: departing. Cf. "parting day," Gray's Elegy; "parted from the jousts," Tennyson's Lancelot and Elaine, 1. 618. Depart" formerly meant separate. "Part" and "depart" have exchanged meanings. 66 5. bowers: Goldsmith was partial to this word. Cf. ll. 33, 37, 47, 86, 366. 10. cot: cottage (the older meaning of the word). Cf. “poure folke in cotes," Langland, Piers Plowman, C, x, 72; also Burns's The Cotter's Saturday Night. The word occurs often as a suffix in place-names: Charlcote, etc. 12. decent church: decent is used in its root sense of comely, becoming. Sir Walter Scott wrote of Lissoy (Miscellaneous Prose Works, 1834, III, 250): The church which tops the neighboring hill, the mill, and the brook, are still pointed out; and a hawthorn has suffered the penalty of poetical celebrity, being cut to pieces by those admirers of the bard who desired to have classical toothpick cases and tobacco stoppers. Much of this supposed locality may be fanciful; but it is a pleasing testimony to the poet in the land of his fathers. Cf. also the account of Dr. Strean, who was Henry Goldsmith's successor as curate of Kilkenny West, near Lissoy (Forster's Life, II, 207). |